Salim Shah, a resident of Katol town in Nagpur district, who was beaten up at Jalalkheda on July 12 on the suspicion of carrying beef, has been arrested after forensic report confirmed that the meat was beef.

According to sources, police has filed a case against Salim Shah Bharsingi.

The police, which found him unconscious on the road and took him to a hospital, have arrested four persons for the attack. "Now that the test confirmed that he was carrying beef, the party has chose to expel him.However, we condemn the action by those who assaulted Shah as things could have taken a different course too", said Potdar. "It is shocking. He should be given strict punishment", he told News18.

The BJP government in the state has amended provisions to the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act, 2015, to ban the sale and transport of beef. The cow vigilantes were members of Independent MLA Bachhu Kadu's Prahar Sanghathana. Four people were arrested for the assault. Soon after, the samples were sent to forensic lab situated in Nagpur where it was corroborated that the meat was, indeed, beef.

"They got hold of me and started beating me".

Expressing his surprise over the lab reports confirming beef, BJP's Nagpur (rural) unit president, Rajiv Potdar said that Shah will be removed from the party.

The BJP had played down the cow vigilante attack, calling it a stray incident. It was learnt that he was a BJP member only a day after the attack. "No person in this nation has the right to take the law in his or her own hands in this country", PM Modi had said last month, days after a 16-year-old, Junaid Khan, was stabbed to death on a train in Haryana.